Districts Starting to Loosen Student Travel Bans

Students from Community High School District 155 in Crystal Lake,
Ill., often took field trips to Chicago, just 50 miles to the south.
But district officials, fearing an increased risk to student safety,
called a halt to all trips after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"It was a tenuous time," said Mike Mills, the superintendent of the
6,000- student district. Tall buildings in Chicago, like the Sears
Tower and the Chicago Trade Center, district officials reasoned, could
become the next targets after the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
were struck.

Today, Crystal Lake students again regularly trek to the Windy City.
As airport security has increased and the nation has regained a sense
of normalcy—even the White House will be reopened to visitors
this month—many districts are reconsidering Sept. 11-inspired
travel bans.

For example, the Bristol, Conn., school board decided in early
January to allow students and teachers from the 8,000-student district
to travel domestically. After some debate, the board also approved
school-sanctioned trips abroad.

In Illinois, Mr. Mills said that the ban on student travel in his
district had prompted him to revamp the policy on school-sanctioned
trips in general. School officials decided that the annual trip some
teachers and students take to Disney World would no longer be a
school-sponsored activity; the district did not want to be responsible
for each student's safety during the trip.

School groups would still be allowed to take such noneducational
trips, but the district would no longer be directly involved, Mr. Mills
said.

In late November, Mr. Mills decided to lift the ban on the field
trips to Chicago, partly because President Bush was telling people to
participate in their usual activities, but with a heightened state of
awareness.

Feeling Safer

That message inspired many people to keep their travel plans, even
though it contradicted many districts' decisions to curtail travel,
said Michael Palmer, the executive director of the Student Youth Travel
Association of North America, located in Lake Orion, Mich. The
president, he said, "would have a better handle on national security
than a local school district."

A Spencer, Mass.-based student travel company, known as Passports,
experienced a wave of cancellations after the attacks in New York City
and just outside Washington, said Michael Forhan, the director of
corporate development for the company, which organizes overseas
trips.

But now that some districts are lifting the bans and travelers are
feeling safer, bookings have started to increase. Spring break and the
Easter holiday are popular times for travel, Mr. Forhan said. And some
teachers are already planning trips abroad for the 2003-04 school year,
he said.

"The market is starting to come back in a big way," he said. By next
year, he estimates, the company will have recovered about 80 percent of
the business it had before the attacks.

Student-travel companies report that trips abroad have decreased
significantly, but that trips to the American heartland have increased.
Students have started visiting such places as Branson, Mo., St. Louis,
and Nashville, Tenn., Mr. Palmer said, instead of East Coast locales
that traditionally have been more popular.

The recent cancellations and fear of travel won't be a long-term
trend, Mr. Palmer predicted, adding that the student-travel market has
grown about 20 percent a year for each of the past 10 years.

Lingering Concerns

But even as students and adults have started getting back on planes
and buses, some districts are sticking by their original decisions and
continuing to prohibit student travel.

For instance, school officials in East Lansing, Mich., have retained
an international travel ban even though high school students there
recently staged a sit-in to protest the restrictions. The school's
orchestra had to cancel a March trip to perform at Walt Disney World in
Orlando.

However, Thomas R. Giblin, the superintendent of the 3,700-student
district, said that domestic trips will be considered on a case-by-case
basis. A trip to a nearby amusement park has already been approved for
the high school physics class later this spring.

In Cherokee County, Ga., parents of students in two
schools—Etowah High School and Sixes Elementary School—lost
$150,000 from deposits for field trips that had to be canceled when the
superintendent called off all field trips to Washington, military
installations, and overseas.

In response, Frank Petruzielo, the superintendent of the
27,000-student district in suburban Atlanta, used unanticipated
revenues from property taxes to give the two schools a total of
$100,000 for their supplementary budgets. The schools plan to use that
money to take their students on field trips, said district spokesman
Michael McGowan.

Policies on student travel—and the reactions from students and
parents—vary greatly nationwide, according to Donna Clark, the
associate director of the National Student Councils Association, based
in Alexandria, Va.

Some districts are cutting travel because of budget concerns, she
said. But some student councils have been able to obtain travel-ban
waivers by presenting their side to the local school board, Ms. Clark
said. "In some cases, it is working," she said.

And in general, Ms. Clark said, she has seen that school boards and
superintendents are starting to lift the bans. "It is becoming a little
more relaxed," she said.

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